


the one that’s not really about t-shirts

by subcas



Series: incipit [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Incomplete, M/M, Mentioned Cas/Others, Mentioned Dean/Others - Freeform, Recreational Drug Use, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:35:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subcas/pseuds/subcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was staring at a dementedly grinning plastic reproduction of a buddha that Cas came to the conclusion that Dean’s and his relationship was like an old t-shirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the one that’s not really about t-shirts

**Author's Note:**

> INCOMPLETE
> 
>   
> 

It was staring at a dementedly grinning plastic reproduction of a buddha that Cas came to the conclusion that Dean’s and his relationship was like an old t-shirt. Too worn in and comfortable to let go of but not to be shown out in public because it was dingy and had a couple of holes and it made people stare and if anyone knew about it then you might have to explain how long you’ve had the shirt and why you still like it when you normally only wear another type of t-shirt, v-necks maybe.

Everyone thinks you like v-necks, and you _do_ , but you also like this other t-shirt. Once, a long time ago now, before you even knew this shirt existed, there were others but you don’t like to talk about, then, now, or ever, that so he pretends he doesn’t know. Maybe if it was a different t-shirt, if it was newer and didn’t embarrass you so often you would _want_ to admit that you liked the t-shirt because people wouldn’t say things like, “ _That’s_ your t-shirt?” when you revealed it. It isn’t though, it isn’t good for anything these days, it’s nothing more than a faded memory of what it was. The last piece of sentiment left from the life you used to live. That’s the only reason it hasn’t been discarded. So instead you only wear the t-shirt in secret, usually at night, sometimes to sleep. Okay, maybe he was stretching the t-shirt metaphor a little too far, like the t-shirt person in question.

Maybe Dean was out wearing a v-neck right now, while his t-shirt waited for him and stared at this fat ugly baby statue. The more he looked at it, the less sure he was it was actually Budai at all. It certainly wasn’t Siddhārtha, who would have been quite stung that vast swath of the world thought _he_ looked like that. A virtuous man to be sure, but they call it practicing for a reason and in his less adept youth he inculcated that spark of vanity which goes hand in hand with great beauty and can never be completely snuffed out. 

He squinted his eyes warily but it made nothing clearer. _Fuck it_ , thought Cas, and sparked a lighter to his roach. Dean wasn’t a huge fan of him smoking up, which he thought was a bit hypocritical since he did it too, occasionally. Rarely, but still. Anyway, as a rule Cas didn’t smoke in their, his, who knew, cabin but if Dean was going to leave him here then what was he going to do about enforcing it? Can’t stare disapprovingly at the choices of your goddamn disgrace of a t-shirt when you’re out with some straight-edge v-neck who probably doesn’t smell of weed and gunpowder. Cas snorted. The only straight edge he had was on the knife stashed in his boot.

It was a cash crop anyway, figuratively at least since no one used cash anymore, what worth did bits of colored paper at the end of the world? If someone were inclined to light a cigar with $100, they’d find the cigar would be far harder to come by than the money. At the beginning, some people collected stacks of cash found on scavenging missions, like they were hoping armageddon would blow over in a few months and they could stroll into their bank and deposit a tidy sum into their checking account. These days, no one bothered. 

They didn’t waste any of their plot on growing tobacco, which still pulled a nice enough profit, but he did a pretty good business trading a more useful green than bills to bring in supplies for the camp. It wasn’t the only thing he grew, but most of the other plants were food crops, vegetables mostly, occasionally he could coax out some fruit in a really good season, but there was rarely any extra to trade, too many mouths to feed. 

They didn’t have the space for wheat or grains, though there were a few camps further out from the cities that did. There was a certain measure of safety to be found in remoteness, less chance of unfriendlies out in the boonies, but there were dangers too, supplies were hard to come by, trade routes unreliable, and protection almost non-existent. None had enough bodies to post a continous guard shift, or the means or manpower to make acres of farmland defensible. If they ran into trouble, there wasn’t any backup. It was a risky gamble. Last year one of the camps they traded with got hit, as far as anyone could figure it was right before the first snowfall, and the dead laid there all until the melt before anyone came looking, by happenstance. 

The last bed was devoted to herbs, a carefully cultivated catalogue of variety, some for cooking and some for medicine. He considered the marijuana one of the latter but opinions differed. Still, quality control, or whatever. He was disobeying a commandment though, _never get high on your own supply_. Well, it’d hardly be his first infraction. 

No one touched the herbs without his permission. In general, he was the de facto leader of the whole of it, but it wasn’t his only job. When he was out on patrol, called away to strategy meetings, or otherwise occupied (sometimes with one of a hundred jobs, sometimes lying in his cabin throwing things at anyone who tried to enter, sometimes blowing off a work detail, sometimes blowing a worker, detailedly) the retinue of helpers he’d accidentally cultivated along with the garden would pick up the slack. Through no deliberate means on his part, they were all women. This suited him fine but he was aware of the snickering attitude towards his “flower beds” from many of the other men in the camp. 

He was also aware of the rumors of his ever-full actual bed, but he did not sleep with his companions. They kept a careful eye while he was gone, and occasionally turned that watchful gaze on him too, but no one touched his herb bed. Any visitors would be turned away with a, “Wait for Cas.” Those who pressed were sweetly told, “One plant with yellow flowers can be used as a painkiller, or it can poison you if it’s prepared incorrectly. The other yellow flowers are a powerful emetic. Do you know which is which and how to prepare them? Because I don’t.” 

Nothing is ever spoken about what will happen the day Cas doesn’t come back. There is a carefully handwritten and illustrated book hidden in Cas’s cabin. It charts the location and appearance of each herb, as well as his notes on them. He intends for it to go to Susan, the only one allowed to water and weed his beds if he is away longer than planned, but he does not inscribe a name of the front cover. It felt too much like tempting fate. At least it was at least something which allowed him to practically apply some of his encyclopedic knowledge on the minutia of humanity. 

Besides, everyone drank the moonshine from the homemade still, which could get someone halfway to drunk on its fumes alone, and God only knew what went into that shit. As far as intoxicants go, weed tended to help more with the nightmares than getting wasted. When he got drunk, he tended to get into fights. He also tended to get flashbacks. The two were probably connected. He wondered if that side effect was dulled by Dean’s drinking, rather than enhanced. It was hard to tell since tempers ran hot all the time anyway. 

There was a time where he’d asked about it, where he’d shared a bottle and a shoulder with him, when he could get him to stop before that one last drink too many. Dean didn’t like talking about that either, didn’t like Cas ‘babysitting’ him. If anything it was the other way around, Dean practically showing him the ropes of humanity, like he was an infant, but he never could accept care in return. Then things got worse and they were both chasing their demons down with a shot of whiskey. Cas stopped bothering to try to pull Dean out of the bottle and climbed in himself. It helped for a little while, the only thing that did, really, with being able to sleep at night. It was the stuff he did while awake that was the problem, anyway.

When Dean stopped wanting him to be in the bottle with him, Cas dove deeper. Maybe he was trying to drown more than his sorrows. He drank like he was looking for an answer at the bottom of the glass. The question was: When will you kill me? If Bobby hadn’t pulled him out of it, he’d have that knowledge. He’d made every attempt to dry out Cas, but what he hadn’t managed in life, he did in death. 

Anything stronger, especially if it had to be manufactured, was harder to get. Not impossible, if someone was desperate, because it seemed like some mobsters saw the apocalypse as a business opportunity. The hard stuff was saved for painkillers or other medical applications. That was probably good, he enjoyed the numbness that those sort of highs brought a little too much. Not enough to go around hurting himself on purpose.

**Author's Note:**

> this came from me thinking about the practical applications of illicit substances after an apocalypse, and how it would be possible for the supply/demand of that situation to play out. essentially, in terms of worldbuilding, how people would get their hands on them when, well, the world has ended.
> 
> drug use is common in endverse fics, but it seems unlikely that anyone could get their hands on an unlimited supply of narcotics, especially opiates (as some people have cas do), when there would be real need for them for medical uses. then i ended up scrapping most of that because i didn't think people would be interested, and it would make better meta than fic.
> 
> also, that i thought cas would like gardening.


End file.
